BlackBerry announced today that President and COO, Bryan Palma has decided to leave the company to pursue other opportunities.
Palma was only appointed in January 2019 and oversaw the BlackBerry Technology Solutions, Enterprise Software & Services, and Mobility Solutions teams.
Palma was responsible for the Company’s core product and services that serve as the foundation for its strategy to secure the Enterprise of Things (EoT). This includes people, processes, and ‘things’ – from connected cars and smart speakers to documents, emails, and the data that flows between.
Palma came to BlackBerry with nearly 20 years’ experience delivering rapid growth at some of the world’s largest and respected organisations such as Cisco, Boeing, Hewlett Packard, PepsiCo and the United States Secret Service.
BlackBerry says that the BlackBerry IoT Business will report directly to John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO, which is a little disconcerting. In the last earnings report, which were extremely disappointing, it was the IoT business that perhaps was the worst performer. Investors be now be questioning why the company’s CEO is now taking the reigns rather than promoting someone else to the position!
Having a COO leave after less than a year on the job, after he was praised as a fantastic hire, and happy to lead the IoT segment is of major concern.
